Esperwen- Sorry, guys; I'm a couple days late... D= Some stuff happened, and then some other things came up, and then omg, nothing happened on Valentine's Day, and then there was family, and then GAAAAH. So, I'm late. To make it up to you, I will update again this Friday! So...read!

-Chapter 11 ~ Konoha is Not a Safe Place-

(Shino Aburame)

(Late October)

(Maito Dojo)

Many things happened, that week. First, there was that shoot-out that ended in Michiko nearly collapsing. Then, two days later, the Kisame and Michiko fiasco in the caf. And the day after, Naruto needed me to drive across the city, to pick him up after his martial arts class. This was so that he could get in another hour or so of training before going on patrol, rather than spending all that time on the bus. Normally, I would consider all that a waste of time, gas, and mileage; one more hour of training was not going to help him that much. But not that day.

I arrived at the Maito Dojo about 15 minutes early. I parked my father's car and entered the huge building, mildly surprised that Naruto's mother could afford to send him to a dojo with such a large, elaborate koi pond and greenhouse garden in its front anteroom. Kiba could barely afford the few lessons he took at the Ebisu Dojo, a run-down old gym in the centre of downtown Konoha. This gym looked a lot like a modernized temple. Perhaps because it specialized in martial arts.

I should have aimed to arrive a little late, I thought to myself, walking slowly through the gym's indoor garden to the gym/martial arts studio's main corridor, I hate waiting...and Naruto is usually late, anyway.

"Your form is all wrong! Lower your left arm!"

"My form is perfect! You just don't wanna teach me more than the basics!"

I could hear a student arguing with her instructor. Probably not the wisest thing to do; my philosophy is that if an instructor actually tells you how to change something, rather than just yell at you, he probably knows what he is doing. But, of course, students refusing to pay attention to their teachers was a common occurrence in Konoha City.

Then I heard a crash. And not just any crash; I was certain I heard something explode. This was not so common. Suddenly, my interest was piqued.

The two voices came from behind a closed door, at the very back of the dojo, far from all the other rooms. Glancing at my watch, I saw I still had 12 minutes before Naruto would start expecting me, so I decided to see what was going on in that room.

Quietly, I moved to the door, and carefully, I opened the door just a crack, so that I had a thin strip to look through. Peeking inside, I saw a girl about my age with her hair up in two buns, and a teacher with a strange cloth headpiece that covered the left side of his face. The two of them were sparring with wooden nunchucks. They seemed to be the only ones in the room. I wondered why; all the other classes seemed to have at least 15 people in each room.

I used to watch martial arts tournaments, when I was still in elementary school; the girl's form was actually quite good. Perhaps even perfect. As I watched, I saw that she had already developed a natural flow between stances.

But they were the same, basic stances over and over again. The girl's face grew grimmer and grimmer as she continued to lose her patience. In a way, I understood her annoyance; repeating the same movements many times over and over again could drive any person insane.

"I hate this!" the girl growled, such a tough tone sounding out of place when spoken with such a high voice.

"Tenten, patience..." the teacher warned sternly.

"But this is boring!" Tenten yelled, hitting out with both nunchucks, and easily getting blocked and stopped.

"Tenten, calm down!" the teacher scolded, both of them moving back into beginning stances.

They looked as if they would start fighting again, but at that moment, all three of us noticed a change in the weapon Tenten was holding.

The nunchucks had started to glow pink, around Tenten's hands.

"You need to calm down, right now!" the teacher barked, taking a step towards his student.

"I'm trying, Baki-sensei!" Tenten snapped, a slight quaver in her voice, possibly indicating fear.

"Take a deep breath-"

"I am!"

"...and push away your angry feelings-" Baki tried again.

"I'm breathing, and I'm pushing! And it's not working!" a note of panic entered into her voice.

What's going on? I thought to myself, sensing something was going to wrong very quickly.

I glanced around the hall, and then at my watch. I had eight minutes left, and nobody was in the hall. I decided to act quickly. Within a few seconds, my long coat and sunglasses were hidden behind a pedestal that displayed an ornamental urn; tying Konoha City's symbol onto my forehead, I was Insect once more.

I looked back into the private training room. Tenten's nunchucks were now completely pink and glowing. She and her teacher were looking back and forth between the glowing training weapon and each other, not really sure what to do.

"Tenten, you have to stop!"

"You think I'm not trying?!"

That last outburst pushed Tenten over the edge. In a split second, the glowing shifted from pink to white. Tenten flung the weapon at the last second, away from the door and her teacher. When the nunchucks hit the wall at the back of the room, another crashing explosion was heard, identical to the one I'd heard earlier. When the resulting smoke cleared, I noticed that the whole back wall had several burnt patches, the shapes of which all looked similar.

She energizes objects so that they explode? I thought to myself, ...fascinating...

"...I cannot in good conscience teach you more, until you learn to control...that!" Baki said sternly, motioning a hand towards the still-smoking while as he glared at Tenten.

"That's why you won't teach me?!" Tenten exclaimed, "I'm not dangerous, if that's what you're saying!"

"You are," the teacher insisted firmly, shaking his head, "There is a reason we train our students' minds, as well as their bodies. We teach control, and you, Tenten, are lacking it!"

"I'm not dangerous!"

I decided at this point that it was time to step in.

"You are dangerous," I interjected, making my entrance and closing the room's door behind me.

"...omigosh!" Tenten's jaw dropped. ...to be honest, she did not say that; she swore a few words, but her voice and face made her curses seem incongruous.

"Wait, you're..." Baki's eyes narrowed, "What is a Protector doing here? Tenten has done nothing wrong!"

"Are you arresting me?"

Tenten's eyes widened, and quickly, she grabbed a quarterstaff that was leaning against a wall; now that I could see the whole room, I noticed that there were racks of various weapons along the two side walls.

"Well, you can't!" Tenten snapped, holding the staff between us at the ready, "I haven't done anything wrong!"

"Nothing wrong? Perhaps not yet. But you are going to, if you continue to let your power run wild," I said calmly, crossing my arms, "And you know this. You're afraid of what your power does."

"I am not afraid!" Tenten yelled, taking a step towards me.

I simply shook my head, and pointed at the staff in her hands. We all could see that it was starting to glow pink.

"...dammit," Tenten muttered, dropping the staff to the floor (thankfully, it stopped glowing and did not explode), and then she stomped her food and yelled, "Dammit! FML!"

"She's been struggling with her ability for weeks, now," Baki explained to me, crossing his arms, "We have been trying to keep this a secret, so I do not know how you found out about her, but..." the man sighed, "She is one of my best students. Can you help her?"

Tenten stopped stomping around to glare at me. It was as if she was challenging me.

"You think you can fix me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"'Fix'? Your power may never go away. My team and I are able to train you," I corrected, shrugging slowly, "We can help you learn how to control your power. But at a price."

"When can I start?" Tenten asked, frowning at me.

"Tenten! Listen to his terms!" Baki scolded, and personally, I thought he was right to do so; agreeing like that was very foolhardy of her. Kiba and Naruto would probably become fast friends with her.

"Fine, what's the catch?" Tenten rolled her eyes.

"Watch your attitude!" Baki ordered.

"Why should I?!" Tenten snapped, balling her hands into fists as she turned to face her teacher again, "I'm dangerous, aren't I? I can't even eat, if I'm too angry, because my food will probably blow up in my face! And what's more, I haven't learned any new moves here! I'm sick of living like this! I'll do anything if it'll get my synergy under control!"

"Does that include becoming a Protector?"

The martial arts master and his pupil finally stopped arguing with each other to look at me.

"...come again?" Tenten asked, that angry look of hers finally relaxing.

"You want her to what?" Baki frowned.

"You believed we would train you for free? Perhaps just say 'You owe us one' and let you go? I know my team, and they will not train someone with such potential, if only to let them walk away," I explained, knowing that Gaara only provided help for free if there was some kind of immediate threat, and Kiba wouldn't like the risk that Tenten might switch over to Team Masque if we let her go. Naruto, on the other hand, probably wouldn't care.

Surprisingly, neither of them said anything. They were mute with shock, for a change. I took this to be a good sign; this meant that they understood the risks that we Protectors took every time we patrolled the streets.

"You both realize what I ask, and this is a good thing," I nodded, "Tenten, I give you until next week to decide. If you do not give me an answer by then, I will assume you chose to handle things your own way."

I looked at the back wall and frowned to myself. I could see charred craters in the walls plaster, and melted fibreglass that was supposed to be part of the wall's insulation. Tenten's 'synergy', as she called it, had extreme destructive power. For everyone's sake, I hoped Tenten would agree to let us Protectors train her, though I wished that she was not obligated to join us. But I knew this was the only way I could help her.

With a nod, I turned to leave. Naruto was probably wondering where I was, by now.

"Wait!" Tenten said quickly, stopping me when my hand touched the door's handle, "Should I meet you somewhere?"

"No," I answered promptly, pushing the door open, "You must find me."

I would not let her risk dying on patrol if her resolve to train with us was weak. If she put in enough effort to find me, in order to join the Protectors, then I would know she was serious. If not...I certainly hoped that I had emphasized the fact that she was, in fact, dangerous, enough to take her mental training more seriously.

Naruto was not anywhere in sight when I got out of the training room, so I was able to put my coat and sunglasses on in peace. I didn't think Gaara would be upset for too long when he found out I was trying to recruit someone; I knew he trusted my judgment substantially more than he did Kiba's, and when Kiba approached him about Naruto, he hadn't shot the idea down completely, right away. However, I still decided to call Kiba to discuss ways I could lighten the news when I gave it to Gaara; our leader would still need convincing, after all.

And Gaara had been less trusting than usual, lately; Kankurou had always been the one to bring Gaara around, and Kiba and I were at a bit of a loss for what to do or say if we wanted to change Gaara's mind.

An unpleasant jolt came over me when I felt how much I missed Kankurou; that feeling still hadn't gone away over the past couple months. And almost instantly, I shoved the feeling away, just like all the times before. Gaara had lost a brother, and Kiba had been much closer to Kankurou than I had ever been. They were holding out just fine, so I had no right to mope.

As I had those thoughts, I found myself dialing Michiko's phone, instead of Kiba's. At first, I meant to hang up and call the right number, but then I hit 'call', instead. Perhaps I could drop Naruto off at the Protectors' base to train alone, and study with Michiko for a few hours, before patrol. It was strange, but even when I was annoyed with her, the world seemed just a little brighter when I was near her.

~*~

(Deniizu)

(Even later October)

Team Masque had everything going great! We hadn't been in the city for that much more than a month, and already we had two new members! And, their powers were awesome.

Hinata had been trying for years to get her foresight to work, but her visions were random, no matter what she tried. But, we soon learned that she could get random visions of specific people if she focused on them long enough. We were trying to use that to find out the Protectors' true identities, but her visions about them were still vague. ...For now, anyway; her visions always got clearer, over time.

Hinata's long-sightedness was pretty good, too. It worked better if she was linked somehow to the person she was looking for, like if they were friends, but I was pretty confident her power would come in handy if someone went missing or was kidnapped.

Neji, our newest member, was pretty strong, too. He didn't have foresight, or farsight, but he did get strong feelings that something bad was going to happen, to people he knew. It was like a sixth sense; he always knew when someone was about to attack Hinata, and where it was going to happen, right down to the address of the building. And, what was even better, he didn't have to be there to fix the problem; Hinata may need to be around to change one of her visions, but anybody could go check on Neji's hunches. The only problem was that he couldn't control this sense at all. Either he got a bad feeling, or he didn't.

That's how he found Pooriin, Michiko and Hinata, that day when we first found out he had powers. He knew that Hinata was going to be in danger, when Michiko took her out on patrol, so he was able to locate them when Pooriin picked them up. Seriously, what Michiko did was so stupid. She wanted to give Hinata a taste of what patrol was like, so she ended up dragging Hinata around with her, for the night. She even kept Hinata supersolid/airy for hours, to keep her safe, so by the time I caught up with them, Michiko was exhausted. It was a good thing nothing much happened, that night...

It was also a good thing the streets were basically empty, by the time Neji got around to 'fighting' Pooriin and Michiko. Nobody noticed him, or his crazy ability: his shockwaves. They were kind of like a beefed up version of Hinata's pulses. Hinata had to touch people wth the palms of her hands to make her pulses work, but Neji didn't. When he clapped his hands, a more powerful, flat shockwave was made; these were the kind that you could jump over or duck under, kind of like an invisible disk or something is thrown at you. If he just released energy from his hands or feet, or even his entire body, a slightly weaker, but harder to dodge, shockwave was made. Michiko let Neji hit her with both kinds of wave while she braced herself, to test out how strong he was. She said she felt like she was hit by a car when Neji didn't clap; when he did clap, she said it felt like a truck. The only problem was that Neji had to have bare hands for a full-effect shockwave; anything touching his skin would cancel out at least half of the wave's power. Also, if Hinata came in contact with one of Neji's shockwaves, she canceled it out completely. It was like he was born to protect his cousin, and she was born to keep him in check.

I thought Neji and Hinata's powers were the coolest things I'd ever seen. I was excited; I had a feeling that with enough training, Neji would be able to level buildings, and Hinata would be strong enough to throw people across rooms.

Not that she ever would. Hinata didn't take very good care of herself. Pooriin managed to find out from people at school about how Hinata was bullied at school, but she never tried to talk to anyone about it. Nobody ever touched Hinata, but they did talk her down and swear at her. This was why she was so shy, now.

I asked Neji about it, and he said that things were much worse for her when he graduated to high school, and Hinata was left alone in a different school for a year. Because he wasn't around, people actually got the chance to beat on her.

It was because she was such an easy target! She didn't talk back or call for help; she just took it. She was used to treatment like that. I'd followed her home one night, to see what her family was like. Her father either ignored her or lectured her for the littlest things, even saying how much of a disappointment she was, especially as his heiress. I hated him. He was one reason Neji was so protective over Hinata; if Hinata wasn't safe at home, Neji figured she couldn't be much safer away from it.

But she was safe with us. We, Team Masque, could protect her. Not too long after Hinata joined us, I figured we needed a better headquarters; the cathedral we used to meet on the roof of was way too open, and the Hyuugas couldn't train their powers there. After a few days, I found an abandoned hotel, which was closer to the center of the city, and, more importantly, it was more private. The whole area was full of closed shops that had run out of business, so nobody even drove through the area. It was a really secret place. When I found it, I hoped that Hinata would eventually consider it to be the safest place she could be. She needed a place like that...

~*~

(Michiko)

(Early November)

(Team Masque's HQ)

It had been maybe one and a half weeks since Neji had joined our team. All five of us were in the gym of our headquarters (a hotel that Deniizu had found about two weeks before). Neji and Hinata were training their pulse/shockwave control with Pooriin; Hinata would propel an object (in that case, it was an old coffee can) through the air, Neji would make a shockwave to send it back to her as fast as he could, and Pooriin would try to run in and grab the object. It was like volleyball keep-up meets really easy monkey-in-the-middle for Pooriin; she still had to go easy on them, because they still couldn't move the can all that quickly. To be fair, Deniizu and I would have had trouble catching the object, had we been in Pooriin's place. All of us were in our uniforms (part of training was being familiar with your costume, so that during actual fighting, you were used to any extra fabric), except for Neji; his costume hadn't come in, yet.

"...Neji?"

I had been studying 'Macbeth' for English class, while Deniizu was writing a letter to Shika and Temari in Oto City. When I heard the coffee can clatter onto the floor, the both of us looked up, startled.

"Um...are you ok?"

When I heard Hinata sound concerned, I put my playbook away, figuring it must be something important. Deniizu didn't move, though; she doesn't really like Neji much. They're both really stubborn people, and they argued with each other over just about everything ("It's too cold!" "No, it's too hot!" "I'm tired!" "Keep moving!" "It's gonna rain!" "No, it's just cloudy!"), so they tended to stay out of each others' way.

The hotel used to have a gym/fitness centre, and my teammates had been training inside the dried up pool; it kind of looked like a tennis court with extra lines, that was 4-8 feet in the floor. I hurried over from my place at one of the poolside chairs to check on the others. Neji had frozen where he was, facing the doors, with this worried frown on his face. Pooriin was waving a hand in front of his face, but it was like he couldn't see her.

"Neji? Hey, Neji, can you hear me?" Pooriin asked, knocking on his forehead.

"Yes, I can hear you," Neji answer, sounding annoyed, but never turning to look at her.

"Is he having one of his 'danger sensing' moments, again?" I asked as I jumped into the pool.

"I think so..." Hinata nodded, pulling on Neji's arm, trying to get him to move on his own, again.

He was just frozen. Like something had gotten hold of his mind and was keeping him from doing anything other than think about it. He didn't even blink.

"I have to go," Neji said, nodding once, "This is important; I can't train anymore."

"Why, what's wrong?" Pooriin asked seriously, no longer knocking to see if Neji was home.

"It's Inari," Neji finally blinked, looked first at Pooriin, then Hinata, and then moved towards the ladder out of the pool, "He's going to be in trouble. I have to go to him."

"Hang on," I said, putting a hand on Neji's arm, stopping him, "Inari Tsunami? He's in my neighbourhood; how do you know him?"

"I used to tutor him," Neji explained, pulling his arm away, "I need to find him; he's just a kid!"

"You can't go," Deniizu said, finally putting her pen down and joining us, "Your costume isn't ready yet; you might be recognized."

"I have a mask," Neji frowned at her, "And I hate that costume!"

Goudon and Pooriin figured that Neji would look best with a white and black hakama for his uniform. I thought it was a good idea, since aikido was Neji's favourite fighting style, and you wear a hakama for aikido, but Neji thought it was stupid. He was still going to wear his uniform, but only because we told him he couldn't fight with us unless he did.

"Well, you're not leaving HQ and fighting without it!" Deniizu snapped, glaring at Neji.

The rest of us shared looks; if we didn't do something quick, they would keep fighting until it was too late to help Inari.

"How about this: I'll go," I suggested, putting an arm between Deniizu and Neji to get their attention, "You guys can stay and write letters or train, and I'll see this thing through."

"Wait, wait, wait," Pooriin waved her arms for attention "Don't you have to study? The English midterms are coming up!"

"English is one of my good subjects," I answered, smiling at her, "I'll be fine," I looked at Neji and Deniizu, "So, how about it? Can I go?"

The two of them sized each other up for a moment. I was pretty sure they were both upset that neither of them got to win this argument.

"...Fine," Deniizu nodded, turning around and heading back to her letter, "Neji, tell her where it is."

Neji frowned at Deniizu, who was now ignoring him. ...ok, so maybe Deniizu sort of won. I pretended there wasn't a lot of negative feelings in the room and just looked at Neji, waiting for directions.

"...it'll be around 10th Avenue and Morrison," Neji answered, almost sighing, "Southwest from here."

"Ok," I nodded, hurrying to my stuff and grabbing my mask before heading towards the doors, "Time to get to work!"

Esperwen- Wow, how many times did I spell 'martial' as 'marital'? (Hilarious!) See, this is why we proofread before posting... Again, I'm sorry for being late. Post a reply-able review, and I'll send you internet food!